Tag: book-reviews

One More Gift by Holly June Smith
160 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

If this were a Blumhouse film, the surprise visitor at the cabin would be a demon, not an ex-husband. Fortunately, this is smut, not horror, and instead of blood on the snow we get… bodies on the furniture.

What starts as a cozy little snowed-in getaway for our FMC and her new boyfriend turns into something far more intriguing when her ex-husband shows up and crashes the party. What should be the setup for jealousy and drama becomes a full-on holiday upgrade, as everyone in this tiny cabin decides that collaboration is better than competition. ⚔️

Staying friends with your ex is one thing. Staying really, really good friends while your current boyfriend also becomes very close with him? That’s a whole different candy cane.

The plot is loose and wildly unrealistic, but that’s part of the charm. This is not here to be a profound exploration of human dynamics; it’s here so you can watch three consenting adults make terrible, excellent choices in a snowed-in cabin.

Kink buffet includes tease & denial, breeding kink, bondage, anal play, and DP, all wrapped in warm festive depravity. This is not a “maybe it’s romance with some spice” situation. This is “I need to open a window and it’s December.”

The audiobook cranks the whole experience several notches higher. Holly June Smith clearly understands that listeners are obsessed with duet and multicast narration, and this production delivers. Three luscious British accents pouring filth directly into your ears is a public safety hazard in the best way.

Narrators Evelyn Rose, John York, and Ryan Mairs absolutely do not disappoint. They turn a boring workday into, “I suddenly need to concentrate very hard on this… ‘data.’”

If you’re craving a quick, unapologetically smutty holiday romp with exes who are way too compatible and a boyfriend who’s very on board with group projects, One More Gift is exactly the filthy little present you’re looking for. 🎁🔥

A Very Krampus Holiday by Katee Robert
15 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

That’s right. Fifteen pages. One-five. So if you opened this expecting Great Expectations, that’s on you and your Victorian delusions.

What you do get is a filthy, depraved cannonball straight into Krampus smut that is absolutely the perfect starter shot for your holiday filth marathon. Think of it as a peppermint-flavored sin chaser.

This thing is outlandish in every direction. The spice? Unholy. If I wasn’t firmly on the naughty list before, Saint Nick has definitely filed a formal complaint now. For a story this short, the letter-to-spice ratio is obscene. Every consonant and vowel is doing overtime.

Katee, as always, shows up to do the Lord’s work and by “Lord” I mean whoever is in charge of panty-soaking demon degeneracy. I did not have “reconsidering two-horned monsters dragging me into the pits of hell” on my holiday bingo card, yet here we are. If it is only fifteen pages, maybe being dragged off screaming isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.

If you are craving longing, yearning, tender feelings, and holiday heartstring tugging, keep walking. This is not your cocoa-and-cuddles read.

If you want your brain gently concussed by “what in the kink exploration did I just agree to” smut, this might be exactly your flavor.

Also. It is fifteen. pages. Just take the win and let Krampus rearrange your holiday spirit. 🎄🔥

Bad Intentions by Mila Kane
454 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️¾

Bully romance: the genre where boys have the emotional range of a teaspoon and work it out by tormenting the girl they’re already in love with. Very enlightened. Very mature.

Here, we’ve got the classics.
Bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Awkward nerd.
Coach’s daughter.
“Love” at first sight, followed by 300+ pages of psychological dodgeball.

Lily is the sheltered, rejected nerd, wrapped in bubble wrap by her firmly middle-class parents who gave up their dreams because she was a whoopsie baby. That accidental-baby guilt coats everything she does. It hangs over the story like full-fat ice cream that leaves a waxy film on your tongue. You don’t forget it, and after a while, it’s less flavor and more… residue.

Her dream is simple: get as far away as possible, go to university on the opposite coast, and finally live a life that feels like hers instead of a repayment plan. That craving for independence is one of the most compelling parts of the book, even when the plot is doing the most.

Cayden is the textbook broken bad boy from the bad part of town. Trauma, abuse, cruelty, all wrapped in one broody, ragey package. Underneath it all, he just wants to be loved, of course, but he expresses that obsession with Lily in wildly unhealthy ways. When his past comes for her, his response is violent, dangerous, and exactly what you’d expect from a “dark” high school bully romance.

And that’s the thing. This is a high school hockey bully dark romance that stuffs in every single cringe cliché it can find, then goes back for seconds. Secret pain, cruel pranks, miscommunication, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, the whole buffet.

Which leaves me with the question I always circle back to with bully romance: was it worth it? Are 350-ish pages of humiliation, angst, and emotional gut-punches really balanced by maybe 100 pages of healing and happiness?

When you see that ratio in print, it hits different, doesn’t it? Because no. And no one in their right mind should tolerate that. Yet so many people do, on and off the page.

Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Filter this book through that lens and it stops being just “dark romance fun” and starts feeling a lot more disturbing. Bully romances like this don’t just flirt with that idea, they roll around in it.

So:
✅ Compulsively readable
✅ Emotional depth, especially around guilt and trauma
✅ Spice that serves the story instead of replacing it

But also:
❌ Heavy on cliché
❌ A lot of suffering for a relatively small window of joy
❌ A relationship that, in real life, would be a walking red flag parade

3.75 chili peppers for the spice, 4 stars for the execution… and a lingering unease that might stick with you longer than the happily ever after.

Holiday Hoax by Maggie Cole
408 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️

Fake marriages are such a flawless idea, right? No consequences, no emotional chaos, nobody catching feelings or getting caught in the lie. It’s practically an HR-approved life hack. 🙃

This one is classic spicy Hallmark:

• Grumpy billionaire MMC + sunshine FMC
• Fake marriage to appease the family
• Single bed, forced proximity, big city girl in a small town Christmas terrarium.

Is it original? Not remotely. Is it comforting? Absolutely. You can practically set your watch by the third-act breakup and the “if we just had one honest conversation this book would be 200 pages shorter” miscommunication. If people in romance novels went to therapy and used “I” statements, half the genre would collapse overnight.

Sebastien Cartwright is your standard cold, hyper-structured billionaire with four failed engagements and the emotional range of a colorless spreadsheet. Daddy has decreed that if he doesn’t show up at the family ranch for December, big bro gets the CEO crown. Rich people succession crises are truly the silliest of high stakes.

Enter Georgia Peach. Yes, that is her actual name and yes, she is exactly what you think. She is weaponized sunshine with a mixing bowl, baking cupcakes that practically come with healing crystals baked in. Sebastien allegedly can’t stand her, except for the part where he definitely wants to rail her six ways from Sunday.

So he offers her a deal: pretend to be his wife for the month of December at the family ranch for a casual one million dollars. She says yes, after negotiating up from a mere $100k with the hot emotionally constipated billionaire. (tension foreshadowing? Yes, yes it is)

From there, everything unfolds exactly how you think it will. Feelings. Longing. Spice. Family chaos. The inevitable third-act breakup that feels less like drama and more like the author pulling the emergency brake because “we need conflict here.” I am so tired of third-act breakups that exist purely because no one can say, “Hey, can we talk about this like grown adults?”

The banter is… fine. Not scream-laugh funny, but there were several moments that made me smile. The characters lean hard into stereotype territory, which makes them easy to consume but hard to truly believe. It’s candy, not a meal.

Could this have been a novella? Yes. Did it need 408 pages? Absolutely not. But if you’re in the mood for a predictable, cozy, spicy holiday comfort read where you know exactly what you’re getting and you’re not asking for great literature, this will scratch that “spicy Hallmark” itch nicely.

Genre	Pages	Spice	Rating
Contemporary	560	2 chili peppers	3.75 stars

Review

This is not a reverse harem, it’s “all five brothers are in their feelings about the same girl” energy.

And yes, she is eighteen. Legally an adult, emotionally a feral kitten with a philosopher’s brain and a trauma file thicker than the book itself.

Let’s talk tone first. I was not ready for how deep this story dives into mental health, depression, and suicidal ideation. It is heavy. If you’ve lived with any of that, parts of this will land in your body, not just your brain. They did for me. The depiction is vivid and it absolutely strengthens the emotional stakes and character connection, but it also left me mopey and wrung out. Consider this your content warning and emotional prep.

The spice is present and accounted for, but it is not mindless “plot, what plot?” territory. It is stitched into the story in a way that makes sense for the characters and their mess of feelings. Think “low to medium heat with flavor” rather than “five-alarm smut.”

Now. The FMC.

This eighteen-year-old is quite possibly the most emotionally literate, insight-drenched heroine I have ever seen on a page. She is wise, compassionate, relentlessly self-aware, and has the interpersonal skills of a seasoned therapist who has survived three lifetimes. While actively navigating her own trauma.

Is it compelling? Yes.
Is it believable? Not even a little.

Her depth of understanding about people is so advanced it snapped my suspension of disbelief more than once. And it raised a bigger question for me: did she really need to be eighteen? Was that crucial to the story? In my opinion, no. Beyond some angst about age gaps with the brothers, her being a teenager feels unnecessary and, honestly, a little exhausting. The trend of dropping teenage girls into extremely adult emotional and sexual dynamics like this is starting to feel… icky.

Craft-wise, the book is solid. The plot is dense, the emotional connections are intense, and the dynamics within the family are rich and layered. When the spice shows up, it works, and it fits the emotional tone instead of hijacking it.

Page count, though.

Five Brothers clocks in at about 560 pages. Could this story have been told beautifully in 350? Absolutely. There are stretches that feel indulgent and unnecessary; an attempt to pack more drama and build more tension, which was not needed.

Final vibe:
A well-written, emotionally heavy, occasionally brilliant exploration of trauma, love, and obsession that also made me side-eye the age choices and wish someone had taken a red pen to about 200 pages.

Worth reading if you want:

• Intense mental health themes
• Messy, layered family dynamics
• Low-to-medium spice woven into a real plot

Approach with care if:

• Your attention span is not here for a 560-page emotional marathon
• Age-gap plus teenage FMC makes you uncomfortable
• You are sensitive to depictions of depression and suicidal ideation